


Covenant of Fire

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Abuse, Don't Like Don't Read, M/M, More characters as they appear, Omen Noct to an extent, Power Imbalance, Prisoner of War AU, dubcon for Noct/other noncon for Noct/Drautos, reference to slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-11-23 05:17:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18147587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: In a war between Duscae, Lucis, and Niflheim, King Gladiolus Amicitia receives Prince Noctis, the wild mage of Lucis, as an appeasement prize in the Lucian rites of surrender. He expects to receive a murderer and war criminal, but what he finds upon Noctis' arrival is far different, and far more sinister, than he can possibly imagine.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Heads up! If you don't like fics like this one, don't read it! It takes up way less energy than it does to read something featuring elements you dislike.
> 
> Updates to this fic will be staggered. I rewrote this a while back, but I'll need time to update each chapter.  
> (Yes, this is a rewrite of a fic I wrote and orphaned a while back.)

The morning that Prince Gladiolus Amicitia of Duscae lost everything, he woke to the sound of bells. The sun had just risen over the churned earth of the northern plains of Leide, and Gladio turned his face to it as he stepped out to face the lines of his father’s army. A warm wind bent the white fabric of the tents, whirling red sand into the wheels of transport trucks and mobile siege weapons, and the smell of oil and metal was thick in the air. On the other side of the plain, nestled at the base of a ridge of low hills, the grey and black anthill that was the Lucian army was coming to life. That’s where the bells came, low and faint: The Lucian call to war.

“At least they’re giving us the courtesy of a fair warning.” Gladio turned to see his father, King Clarus, bending low as he emerged from the tent behind him. He was already in full armor, a bulletproof vest strapped under thick, padded cloth, and he held a glass-visored helmet under one arm. His eyes crinkled in a smile, and he placed a hand on Gladio’s cheek.

With no one there to see, Gladio let himself lean into the touch. “I wish they’d break and get it over with, Dad.”

Clarus’ smile thinned. “Regis isn’t one to back down,” he said. Gladio assumed he would know. Before the annexation of Galahd started the war, Lucis and Duscae had been allies against the encroaching might of the Niflheim Empire. Gladio had grown up hearing stories about how honorable Regis was, how kind, how clever, but he’d never been able to muster the sort of respect his father seemed to have for the man. Gladio had lost too many soldiers to his mages. He’d never seen the soft-spoken friend Regis had once been, only the king who moved his armies like chess pieces while he stayed back, watching it all unfold from the safety of his magical walls.

“You’ll lead the Bravo formation today,” Clarus said, gesturing to the heavily fortified left flank of the Lucian army. “Seven mages—One of them the King. Watch your officers.”

“Of course,” Gladio said. He fought to keep his face level. “And you?”

His father turned to the right side, which bordered a canyon. “If they cede ground there,” he said, “we’ll have the only source of fresh water in the region. They’ve placed one mage to guard it. See for yourself.”

Gladiolus squinted: A small, dark figure stood at the crest of one of the hills in the north, all in black, a thin cloak whipping about his shoulders. Gladio recognized _that_ uniform well enough, and laughed.

“The prince?” he said. “Gods, who let him out of the nursery?”

“Overconfidence comes before the fall, Gladiolus,” Clarus warned him. “Go with the grace of the Titan. I’ll see you on the field when we have taken the ground from under the king himself.”

“Who’s overconfident now?” Gladio asked, and his father’s laugh was warm as he turned to rouse his men, striding down the lines of the tents with the bearing of a god come down to earth.

-

The first of the fire came as a flash of light out of the corner of Gladio’s eye, too swift and bright to notice as Gladio and Cor led their troops into the heart of the Lucian line. Then came an almighty roar, and the wind carried a wave of heat that tightened Gladio’s skin and made the men and women around him cough and sputter. He turned to face the northern side of the plain and felt his hands go slack on the hilt of his broadsword.

Fire engulfed nearly half the battlefield, shooting up in relentless bursts of flame like geysers in the earth. It rolled across the ranks of the Lucian army where Clarus Amicitia led his small force of soldiers. Black smoke twisted in the air, and the crack and thunder of fire was not enough to drown out the screams as nearly one third of the Lucian foot-soldiers on the field were consumed. The soldiers that faced Gladio and his own troops broke at the sight of it, falling back before them as the fire raged on, catching at sagebrush and twisted brambles in an unstoppable march across the sand.

“That wasn’t us,” Gladio said. Only a mage could have started such a blaze, an _army_ of mages, but no one would dare take out their own people, not so many, not for this.

Gladio trained his gaze onto the lone figure on the distant hill. Standing straight against the plumes of smoke that caressed his thin frame, skin tinged with gold from the light of the fire he had summoned, Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum slowly lowered his hands.

-

The Lucian army was nothing without their magecraft. Even with the loss of half their soldiers, it took Gladio nearly two years to beat them down. Part of it was fear: Gladio’s troops quailed at the sight of fire for months, breaking formation to run at the first sign of magic. The Lucian mages did their part to make this worse, calling up wind, throwing fire, and making the earth slippery and treacherous with ice. Some could summon lightning, but only the royal family could do so with any real strength.

Prince Noctis was the one mage who didn’t stay behind King Regis’ walls of protection. He seemed to take the fire of King Clarus’ death as permission to charge into the press of battle himself, wearing nothing but his mage robes and a sheen of ethereal fire that made both his own troops and enemy combatants fall before him.

At the battle of Leide, he was in top form. When the diminished troops of Lucis were given the order to retreat, he stood in their midst as a rock before the tide, drawing down webs of lightning onto the oncoming ranks of Gladiolus’ army. One of Gladio’s generals fell to a pillar of flame, another to a bolt of lightning out of the blue, and when Gladio and Cor flanked the young mage at last, Gladio felt a chill curl in his chest at the flash of violet fire in the prince’s eyes.

“Your king has surrendered,” he said to Prince Noctis. “And your magic is nearly gone.” It had to be, for Gladio to still be alive, and the prince knew it. He turned part-way to the figure of King Regis on the crest of the hill, and saw a white banner cracking in the mid-summer heat.

He looked back to Gladio, bowed deeply, and disappeared in a burst of magic. There was another burst fifty feet up—Gladio’s men leveled their weapons—and another, and another, until a bloom of blue fire coalesced into a dark figure standing at King Regis’ side, safe behind the king’s wall of protective light.

“What I’d give to get our hands on _that_ one,” Cor said, and Gladio laughed.

“You never know, Cor,” he said. “Before this is over, we might get the chance.”

-

Three days later, King Gladiolus and his men and women at arms met with the enemy king. King Regis stood tall and proud on the baking earth of Leide, showing no discomfort at the heat that must have been sweltering in his dark robes. At his left stood a member of his Kingsglaive, and on his right the Kingsglaive captain, Drautos. Further still stood the prince—an odd placement, Gladio thought, but then he wasn’t cognizant of every Lucian rule of order.

One, however, he did know, and it was one he’d been dreading ever since the surrender had been called.

A line of men and women in Lucian black stood just to the left, several feet behind King Regis and his retinue. Gladio kept an eye on them as the useless formalities were made, words of peace spoken through gritted teeth. At last, King Regis gestured towards them with an idle air.

“As per tradition,” he said, “the conquering kingdom has the right to an appeasement prize. The men and women you see here are well trained in the arts of pleasure and entertainment, and are all exemplary servants with the privilege of formal educations.”

“As per tradition,” Gladio said, testing the words with careful deliberation. He knew that the Lucian people would not consider the gift to be akin to slavery, and had been warned against commenting on the practice, but the thought of it made his stomach turn. A citizen of their country shouldn’t be considered free for another to use or discard. He scanned the faces there, the young men and women behind the King who had been trained for this task, who showed no fear, no trepidation.

Then his gaze rested on the prince.

“Him,” Gladio said, at last. “As per _tradition,_ we will accept Prince Noctis as the appeasement prize for your terms of surrender.”

There was a brief silence. Wind swept through the dust at their feet, and Gladio waited for the inevitable protest, the cries of dismay, the insistence that tradition meant _trained_ and _common._ That the kingdom needed this monster to survive.

It didn’t come.

“Very well,” said King Regis.

“We’ll have him to you by the end of the week,” said Captain Drautos.

And Prince Noctis, the wild mage of Lucis, the man who slaughtered troops in domes of lightning and shattered their hearts with ice, threw back his head and laughed.


	2. Chapter 2

When Prince Noctis arrived at the Amicitia stronghold at the border of Duscae, he came alone.

The gate sentries spotted him first: A slender, dark-haired man in a simple black tunic and leggings, dripping with gold chain and crystal. Diamonds winked on silver pinned fine as thread in his hair, gold bracelets snaked up his wrists, and he wore a black cloth collar laced with gold wire. His feet were bare, and the guards who met him at the gate winced at the angry scrape of red at the soles.

He stopped before the line of guards and held up his hands. The movement made the thin fabric of his tunic shift, and exposed a raised scar just below his collarbone: An inverted V, with two spirals branching out on either side. The mark of Ifrit, the Infernian.

One of the guards made a warding sign in the air and stepped forward. Noctis waited in silence while his wrists were cuffed, his tunic tugged up to cover the mark, his necklaces tangling as they scraped across his skin. But even with the scar hidden by gold chain and sheer cloth, the guards who flanked him in his slow walk through the camp couldn’t look away. They eyed him warily, as though he were a coiled snake at their feet, a wild dog prowling the wastes with fever in his blood.

He was brought to the tent where the king received visitors and promptly left there. The chair in which the king held court was simple, made of carved cedar and polished by use rather than design, and one of the guards kicked aside a cushion on the floor before pushing Noctis to his knees. The ground stung beneath the coarse rug, and Noctis stared at the empty seat, paying no mind to the guards at his back.

“That’s really him?” one of them asked. Her voice was low and thick with sleep. “You sure he isn’t some kid they picked up off the street and _said_ was the prince?”

“Nah,” her companion said. Noctis lifted his chin a fraction of an inch, tilting his head towards their voices. “I was there the day he killed King Clarus.” He spat. “Some faces you don’t forget.”

“And they just gave him to us?”

“Maybe they don’t care.” A shadow passed over Noctis’ shoulder, and a foot nudged him in the side, making him rock on his knees. “I mean, with someone like that, would you?”

Noctis’ fingers curled around the cuffs on his wrists, and he breathed out slow, closing his eyes to the empty chair of the king of Duscae.

 

\---

 

“They actually brought him?”

King Gladiolus Amicitia bent over the mirror propped on his nightstand, carefully trimming back the stubble of his jaw. He wore no crown: His father’s had perished with him two years ago, lost in the ruin of the battlefield, and it was considered bad luck to be crowned outside the royal city. The only thing to differentiate Gladio from a common soldier was the gold braid on his shoulders, the crest of House Amicitia on his chest, and the signet rings he’d been given on his twentieth birthday.

Cor Leonis, Marshal of Gladio’s Crownsguard and advisor to three generations of kings, leaned on Gladio’s desk and adjusted a pile of unsigned reports.

“Looks like he brought himself. I have patrols out just in case, but the rumor is he walked here. Barefoot, if you’re wondering.”

Gladio grinned. “Across the desert? You’re kidding.” He stopped short, holding the razor to his cheek. “You’re kidding, right?”

Cor shrugged again. “Lucis takes their traditions seriously. Saw it happen back in Accordo, but the prize then was a woman who’d been trained for it.”

The razor dropped to the nightstand, and Gladio scrubbed at his jaw. “That’s what happens when you have a fucked up, backwards society that worships a giant rock, Cor. How long has he been waiting?”

“Not long,” Cor said. Then, in a voice that held only the barest hint of reproach; “He’ll need treatment for his feet.”

“He’ll need to wait.” Gladio straightened his jacket. “So, Cor. What’s on the agenda for the morning?”

Gladio finally entered the tent well after noon, striding in with ink on his fingers and Cor at his back. Prince Noctis lifted his head at his approach with a clatter of precious stones. Noctis’ hands were bound behind him, forcing him to arch his back to sit up properly, but his eyes were bright and watchful under long, dark lashes. They were nearly black with adrenaline, but Gladio saw a flicker of violet crackle along the irises, and there was a sting of magic in the air like the charge of electricity before a lightning strike. Like always, Noctis was more of a weapon than a prince: A force of chaos coiled tight as a wire.

"We assumed you'd have a company with you," Gladio said, gratefully taking a cup of water from an attendant. The prince's gaze focused on the cup in his hand, tongue flicking out over cracked lips, and Gladio moved it to see if his eyes would track its progress.

"We don't send soldiers to accompany dead men," Noctis said, in a short, hoarse voice. He spoke in the dialect of the isolated city of Insomnia, which shared the same foundation as Gladiolus' tongue, but was several hundred years behind the times. Gladio sat on the wide chair in the center of the tent and crossed his legs, earning a slight noise of reproof from Cor.

"Let’s try that again," he said. Noctis watched the cup as he took a slow draft. "Is this metaphorical, or do your people assume I'll execute you before we’re done here?"

Noctis seemed to take a moment to consider this. "Both," he said at last. "When someone is taken as a... a spoil of war..." his lips twisted in a grimace, and Gladio smiled. "He’s pretty much dead. Even if he’s a prince. I walked out of my funeral pyre six hours ago."

"Hold on. You walked out of a _pyre?_ "

"They lit it after I left." Noctis shrugged, and the collars and chains at his neck and arms clinked softly. "Metaphorical, but literal, too. My father will have to find a new heir, and technically, I have no claim on my name."

Gladio whistled low. "That's cruel, even for a Lucian. But I guess you’d know all about cruelty, wouldn’t you?"

Noctis looked at him sharply.

Gladio tilted his cup, letting the water slip to the edge. Noctis barely twitched. “Even your father was quick to wash his hands of you. Makes sense, really. You _are_ the man who lost Lucis the war.”

Noctis’ jaw tightened. Gladio thought of Noctis as he was after the fire, when smoke guttered in the trenches of the killing ground he’d made. The prince of Lucis had walked over patches of melting ice as he surveyed the wreckage, digging at lumps of blackened earth with a foot, breaking apart what looked like shards of clay and bone. Gladio had turned his spyglass on the young prince, and found that his face was dull and expressionless, with no remorse, no pity, no emotion at all.

The look Noctis gave him now was much the same.

Gladio suppressed a shudder and made a gesture. The guards straightened to attention. "Guards. Get that shit off him and bring him to…” He bit down a sigh. “My room, for now. I’m done with this."

"That’s it?" Noctis asked, startled out of his eerie blankness. He sat up, knees shifting on the hard ground. “Isn’t this what you asked for? What you wanted?”

“I want plenty of things,” Gladio said. He stood. “I want an end to the war—I got that. I want to go home, take a bath, never look at this gods-cursed desert again.” One of his guards laughed. “I’ll get that, too.”

He walked to where Noctis knelt, and dropped to a knee.

“And I want my father to walk through that tent door,” he said, in a low voice. A flicker of emotion passed Noctis’ face, swift and unreadable. “But hey. I guess I’ll have to settle for you.”

 

\---

 

Gladio spent the rest of the day in the barracks with his advisors, drafting up the terms of surrender for the Lucian army. It was a long, exacting process, full of needless protocol and reminders from helpful clerks that Lucis was proud, Lucis was expansive, and Lucis would starve before the first winter thaw. King Gladiolus learned what years of fighting King Regis' mages should have already taught him: The desert of Leide swallowed what fertile ground could be tilled, and even with the mystical crystal to guide them, the kings of Lucis could not prevent the relentless approach of famine.

Now, as the man who had finally overthrown the house of Lucis, it was Gladio’s job to find a solution.

He returned to his rooms with a splitting headache, nursing a cup of willow tea as he stepped into the study that lay between his bedchamber and his private reception room. When he heard a low, croaking voice in the bedroom, his hand nearly flew to his sword before he remembered: The prisoner. Of course.

"It's alright," he heard the former prince say, almost gently. His voice was accented when he spoke in the Duscaen tongue, thick and heavy on the vowels. "I won't hurt you. Just pretend I'm not here."

There was a shuffling sound, and a clatter. "Here," Noctis said. "If I turn around like this, I blend in with the curtains."

There was a nervous, high giggle. "No you don't." That had to be Liona, the maid who cleaned Gladiolus' rooms. "Now you're being ridiculous. Are you sure you’re a prince?"

"No,” Noctis said. “Just a slave.”

Liona’s voice came out soft. “We don’t have those here.”

Gladio opened the door to his chambers, making Liona jump in surprise. She was folding his nightclothes over a privacy screen, and Noctis did indeed have his back to her, twisted painfully around on his knees at the end of a heavy rope. His attempt to make the maid more comfortable had pulled the rope taut, causing it to tug his neck back by a new metal collar padded with cloth. The collar glowed at the crack where it joined, and there was a chip at the base that pulsed with a faint blue light. His feet were bound with gauze, and he wore a simple tunic in Amicitia blue and grey. When he saw Gladio, the light in his eyes died immediately.

"Enjoying captivity so soon?" Gladio asked. "Thank you, Liona, that will be all." He waited for the maid to bob a curtsy and leave, then latched the door shut.

"Your country is a gods-awful mess," he told Noctis, heading behind the privacy screen to disrobe. "I've half a mind to raze it to the ground and start over. Good thing I have _you_ in that case. You're good at destruction."

Noctis struggled to turn towards the partition, and when he spoke, it was in a much slower, careful tone. "Is that what I’m here for?”

"What, half your army wasn’t enough for you?" Gladio said. "Fuck, you’re bloodthirsty. No. If I have my way, you’ll never use your magic again.”

Noctis watched Gladio for a moment. “My dad gave you the best mage in his army.”

“Aren’t we humble,” Gladio said.

“So why’d you even ask for me as a prize if you aren’t going to use me?”

Gladio raised an eyebrow, and Noctis sank on his heels. “Thought appeasement prizes were supposed to be fancy whores,” he said. “Not war criminals for hire.”

“Oh.” Noctis’ voice had gone blank again, dull and inflectionless. Gladio took advantage of the blessed silence to tug on his nightclothes and step out from behind the partition. When he did, Noctis tensed, blinking hard and swaying on his knees.

"Hell's wrong with you?" Gladio asked. 

Noctis grimaced. "Your men encrypted a stasis spell on the collar," he said. "And I haven't had any... It's been a long day."

Ah, the famous Lucian pride again. Gladio glanced at a pitcher of water at his bedside, just out of reach of the rope, and made his way to it.

"You say that Prince Noctis is dead," Gladio said. He held the pitcher in both hands. "Prove it."

Noctis swallowed. A long minute passed, both of them watching each other, water beading the sides of the pitcher.

"Please," Noctis said, in a small, tight voice. His gaze was fierce enough to burn.

"Please, what?"

There was another silence. Noctis clenched his hands around his cuffs. “Wait,” he said, as Gladio set down the pitcher again. “I didn’t say to… I’ll beg if you want me to.”

Gladio gave him a long, blank look, and held out a hand. When he poured water into his cupped palm, Noctis recoiled, but it took only a few seconds of watching water spill between Gladio’s fingers for him to surge forward on his knees. He bent over Gladio’s offered hand, like a lover in an old book kissing their intended’s palm. His tongue scraped Gladio’s skin, and without warning, spurred on by desperation, Noctis took two of Gladio’s fingers into his mouth. It was barely enough for a few drops, but Noctis sucked reflexively, breathing hard through his nose.

Gladio wrenched his hand away. Noctis stared up at him, face flushed, chest heaving, eyes dark. Gladio almost raised his voice to call for the guards, to order them to send Noct… anywhere. To a tent, or a closet in the barracks, anywhere but there, kneeling on Gladio’s floor with his lips parted and brows knit. But this was the most secure room in the base, and Gladio knew that he wasn’t the only one who had lost family to the wild mage of Lucis.

Slowly, affording Noctis a mercy he didn’t deserve, Gladio lifted the pitcher to Noctis’ lips.

After Noctis was left gasping, turning his face aside, Gladio put the pitcher away. He climbed into his bed, drawing the curtains on one side, and pulled out a book on astronomy. He'd barely opened it when he heard the rustle of cloth. Noctis was staring at him, looking lost and young, his lips parted and cheeks flushed pink.

"What?"

Noctis motioned to the bed. "Where do I sleep?"

Gladio huffed. "Where you are," he said, and turned back to his book. His father’s killer watched him for another minute, then leaned against the footboard of the bed, listening to Gladio turn the pages of his book until he could no longer keep up the pretense. The bedside lamp sputtered out, and Noctis disappeared, nothing but a shadow with the faint blue light of the stasis collar pulsing in the dark.

 

\---

 

Gladio woke in the early hours of the morning to a ripple of movement at the foot of the bed. Thrown into instant alertness, he pushed himself up by one hand, reaching for the blade he kept hidden behind the mattress and headboard.

At his feet, obscured partly by the ironwork of the bedpost, Noctis panted in the dark. He was drenched in sweat, his hair curling at his temples and neck, and his pupils were blown with adrenaline. Gladiolus recognized the wild-eyed, erratic gasping of night terrors from his time on the field, when companions would wake in the ditches with no notion of where they were, frozen in a memory of death and fear. Gladio waited for Noctis to slowly gather his bearings, to register the quiet of the fortress around them, the safety of enclosed walls. His hands were still bound, so he leaned heavily on the foot of the bed to hold himself upright.

"It smells like death in here," he whispered.

"No," said Gladio. "That's just your brain fucking with you."

"Prince Gladiolus?" the man turned unfocused eyes to him, and Gladio cursed inwardly. Noctis was well and truly gone, lost in whatever dream had overtaken him.

"King Gladiolus, now," he said. "Do you know who _you_ are?"

There was a long silence. "I don't know. They took my name. Gods. I don't _know,_ I—"

"Alright. Shit. I'm coming." Though he didn't know _why._ It was almost instinct—Gladio always looked out for his soldiers, was quick to put himself first in battle and last in a retreat, just like his father, and even if this man on the floor was nothing more than a war criminal raised to command, he was, in a way, his.

"I'm gonna untie you," he said, in a low voice. "But you need to promise not to try and strangle me."

Noctis didn't respond. He sat back on his knees as Gladio untied the rope from his neck and wrists, and let himself be lifted to the bed. Gladio sat in front of him, and waved a hand in front of his eyes, checking his response time.

"You're Noctis," he said, in the same low tone. "You lost the battle of Leide a week ago, and the Lucian army surrendered. You've been given to me as part of the terms of peace. That make sense?"

"Yes," Noctis said, slowly. "You're going to execute me."

"What? No, I—"

But Noctis wasn't listening. He lifted his hands to his face, shoulders hunching as he tipped forward. His forehead touched the center of Gladio's chest, and Gladio carefully, _carefully_ laid a hand over his soft black hair.

"Thank you," the former prince of Lucis whispered. "Thank the gods."

 

\---

 

When Gladio woke again, it was to the sound of a body falling out of the bed next to him.

"Huh," he said. "You're awake."

Noctis let out a string of Lucian swears that was almost inspiring, and made to climb onto the bed again. Gladio made a clicking sound against his teeth, and Noct looked at him with frank confusion.

"Once you're out, you're out," he said. "You only use the bed on my order. Last night was an exception."

"Last night?" Noct’s eyes widened, and he scrambled at the hem of his tunic. Gladio rolled his eyes.

"You just slept, princess. If I fuck you, you'll know." He groaned and got out of bed.

"And will you?" Noctis asked.

"That's why they sent you," Gladio said. "But no. I’m not the kind of man who would bring my father’s killer into my bed.”

Noct raised an eyebrow, and Gladio glanced at the unmade bed with a grimace. “In the normal way,” he added, and Noctis let out an incredulous snort. “Also, it's early, so I'm letting this slide, but from now on? You ask for permission before you speak to me."

"Do I need to ask for permission in order to ask for—" Noctis gasped as Gladio grabbed a fistful of his hair, looking down at him with an almost bored expression.

"That right there?" he said. "That's the kind of shit I don't need. You _want_ the peace talks to fail? You want me to send you _back?_ I can. I’m about as happy to have you here as you are."

The color drained from Noct's face. He opened his mouth, closed it, blinked slowly.

"Permission to—"

"No," he said, and he watched a shiver run down Noctis' skin at the sound of it. "I think it's time we lay down some ground rules."

It took thirty minutes, most of Gladio’s' patience, and an ungodly _wealth_ of acerbic remarks for Noctis to be manhandled into a semblance of order. At last, he knelt on the floor in Gladio’s receiving room, hands bound, wearing such a perfect expression of disinterest that Gladio was certain he was secretly terrified. He looked painfully out of place amid the warm, sunset tones of Gladio’s room, skin washed pale against the red and yellow rug at his knees. Gladio kept his rooms a chaos of color: Brightly painted bookshelves hunched along the walls, rows of hanging orchids and indoor terrariums framed the windows, and he and Noctis were surrounded by paintings of the gardens and marshes of Duscae. Noctis was a city boy, used to stone and dust and desert, and it showed. It was as though just by being there, he was draining the life from the room as surely as his collar drained the mana from his blood.

“So.” Gladio crossed his legs, and Noctis straightened a fraction. “I’ve heard about this tradition of yours. People given to the conquering nation in war are supposed to be… entertainers, right? You can speak,” he added, after a moment of silence.

Noctis shrugged with the lazy air of well-bred ignorance. “Normally, yeah. But you don’t want to hear me sing, Your Majesty, and you _definitely_ don’t want to see me dance. But I guess I can entertain people in, uh…” His gaze raked up and down Gladio’s body, and Gladio gave him a warning look. “Some ways.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Gladio said. “What else can you do? Do you have any skills at all?”

The smile the former prince gave Gladio was too wide, sharp as the gash of a knife. “Oh, sure. I can weave lightning. I can freeze the air in your lungs, if you want, or maybe just your eyes—I’m good at eyes. I can charge a tank with enough lightning to make the heart of every soldier inside twist in a circle. And of course, I’ve always been best at fire, but _you_ know that—“

“Are you done?” Gladio asked, trying not to stare at the stasis collar around the prisoner’s neck. The blue light shone just out of the corner of his eye, a promise that the collar was active, but the gleam of Noctis’ teeth and the easy slope of his shoulders made the hair rise on Gladio’s arms.

“I guess,” Noctis said, blinking up at the gilt frame of the painting over Gladio’s head. “I didn’t think you’d _need_ to hear about what skills I have. They served you pretty well already.”

“Really,” said Gladio, leaning forward. Noct's gaze turned to his, and his eyes were hard, cold, and strangely clear.

“They made you king.”

A moment later, Noctis was laughing softly into the carpet, Gladio was shaking out his stinging hand, and the taste of bile crept up his throat as he stood over the hobbled mage. “There’s something _wrong_ with you,” he hissed, and bright eyes met his from under a mess of untidy hair.

“Really? You _think_ so? How soon did they crown you, _King_ Gladiolus? Was your father even cold in his grave when you took the throne?”

Gladio took a heavy step back, and Noctis didn’t bother to try and rise.“We couldn't bury him,” Gladio said. “There wasn't anything left.” 

Noctis rolled onto his back. “I know,” he said, and placed a hand over his chest, where the mark of Ifrit lay hidden under his tunic. “That’s the point of fire.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up! Dubcon in this chapter between Noct and an extra side character.

There wasn't a grave for Clarus Amicitia in the Duscaean base. There didn't need to be, not when the capitol shut down for a week just to walk an empty coffin through the streets; It felt wrong to have a memorial anywhere but the city. All Gladio had left to remember him was the desert itself, and anyone stationed in Leide knew that if Gladio wasn't at work, they could find him by the eastern wall, sitting on the curved dip where ancient conquerors fitted their cannons, watching the sun creep across the sky. He sat there now, legs dangling over the edge, while Cor Leonis tried to approach without startling him off the side.

Gladio waved a hand. “Report.”

“He’s given us nothing,” Cor said. He leaned on the wall, eyeing Gladio, but Gladio kept his gaze on the sky, where clouds were streaking over the desert. “What’s the king’s plan with Niflheim? He doesn't know. Where are Lucis’ loyalties? He doesn't know. I asked him an easy question about his dad’s bad leg, and he just laughed.”

“Sounds about right.” Gladio felt glass bump his hand. A beer bottle, probably contraband, with the scrawl of a Lestallum brewery on the label. “Thanks.”

“Don't think he’s lying, though,” Cor said. He cracked open his own beer and passed the bottle opener to Gladio. “That's what worries me. Either he’s a very good actor, or he’s a prince who doesn't know shit about his own country.”

“What’d you expect?” Gladio popped the lid off his beer. The lid went flying, arcing down into the sagebrush below. “He’s a psychopath.”

“Or a weapon,” Cor said. Gladio cast him a sideways look. “Weapons don't need to know state secrets. You just aim them and fire.”

“Shit, that's depressing.” Gladio couldn't remember a time when he wasn't being raised to rule. He got his first security clearance at sixteen. He was always at his father’s side, at every meeting and affair of state, in the quiet hours of the evening when it was just the two of them poring through paperwork… He took a sip of his beer. “Maybe they have a different standard for kings in Lucis.”

“If they do, it’s news to me,” Cor said. “This doesn’t seem like Regis. Who would give their son to the enemy?”

“Someone who raised a monster,” Gladio said. “Probably thinks we’ll do what he’s afraid to and get rid of him. Noctis sure thinks he’ll be executed, at least.”

Cor was silent for a minute, drumming his fingers on the side of his beer. “They wouldn't have given him up if this didn't benefit them somehow,” he said. “We need to watch him. See if our spies in the Citadel can dig something up.”

“Sent the order an hour ago,” Gladio said. He tapped his beer against Cor’s. “I _am_ king, you know.”

Cor smiled. He’d been advisor to three--Four, if Gladio cared to count his short stint with Regis. It was hard to pull rank on someone who was giving his dad advice when Gladio was still a toddler. “Of course.”

“Think we can move him to the cells from now on?” he asked. “With a rotating guard? He might have night terrors.”

“You mean he does,” Cor said. “Alright. We’ll move him. Get some sleep yourself, if you remember how.”

Gladio raised his beer in a toast as Cor left, and turned back to the sunset. That was one thing the desert had going for it. In the capitol, Gladio had to climb onto the roof of the royal library to get a proper view of the horizon. In Leide, the horizon was all they had. It engulfed everything, making the stars sharper, the colors more vibrant, the sun and moon so bright that they almost seemed close enough to touch. Gladio leaned on the wall and watched the sun melt into the desert, imagining his father walking through the dry brush, dust on his boots, gaze turned towards home.

 

\---

 

In the end, Gladio should have known that sleep would be hard to come by. There was always more to do after lights out--Someone with a complaint, papers missing a signature, a word of comfort, a message to no one. Gladio smiled through a junior enlisted soldier’s fumbling praise ( _You don’t know how much it means to serve under you, sir, I’ve wanted to be in the army since my mother enlisted, sir,_ ) and listened to the high priest of Bahamut complain about the state of the shrines, and was finally about to head in for the night when he spotted the door to the cells, a sunken stairway pushed up against the chocobo pens. 

Someone should have been guarding it. The job was largely unnecessary, since the cells were empty unless some punk went out, got trashed, and was caught by the patrols, but with the mage of Lucis there, no one should have left their post. Gladio picked up the pace, and lifted the door off its hinges just enough for it not to creak as he pushed it open. 

A blast of air met him, sweeping up the stairway like a breath of winter. Gladio tugged at his sleeves--They always kept the underground part of the base too cold for comfort--and eased down the steps. 

There were voices down below. Soft ones, low and urgent, and the sound of boot scraping stone. One of the men talking was Noct, that much Gladio could tell, and he was speaking quickly, in short, rapid bursts. 

“Thought you said the cameras were off,” he said.

Gladio stopped at the bottom of the stairs. 

“Sure,” said another voice, a little higher, unfamiliar.

“Then why the _fuck_ are you--” Noct’s voice hitched. “So fucking _slow_?”

“Alright,” Gladio said, pitching his voice to echo down the empty hall. There was a muffled curse, and a thump that rattled the bars. “That’s enough.”

Noct was in the closest cell, splayed out on his backside with his arms propped up for balance, his clothes scattered in the corner under a bench. He was naked, his bare shoulders shifting in the lamplight, and he met Gladio’s gaze with no sign of shame. The mark of Ifrit stood out against his chest, a dark brand against puckered skin, rising and falling with each labored breath.

“Should’ve known you’d like to watch,” he said. The soldier on the other side of the room, who wasn’t even fully undressed, made a strangled sound, and Noctis sighed. 

“He set you up to this?” Gladio asked. He couldn’t look away from the mark. It was almost alive in the dim light, the horns jagged and sharp on Noct’s skin.

“Sire, he came onto me,” the soldier insisted. “I didn’t think--I--”

“I didn’t ask you,” Gladio said.

“He wanted to know if it was true that the mage of Lucis was a whore,” Noctis said, and it seemed as though he were savoring the words, smiling around them. 

“He’s a prisoner,” Gladio said, turning to the soldier, who went ashen. “You’ll stay here. We’ll have someone else pack your bags--We’ll be sending you to the capital for sentencing--”

“Sire, please.”

“I asked him to.” Noct said. “I wanted it.”

Gladio forced his gaze to slide up to Noct’s collar. “He was ordered to guard you, not to fuck you,” Gladio said. “Put some clothes on, for gods’ sakes.”

Noct stood to retrieve his clothes as the soldier backed up, head bent, hands fumbling at his zipper. When Noct turned, Gladio narrowed his eyes and rocked on his heels. Noct’s back was a ruin of scars--Some were old and faded almost white, some raw and pink, raised in criss-crossing patterns. Hardly a palm's breadth of bare skin was left to him; the damage was so extensive that Gladio wondered how he could possibly still be alive. 

Noct slipped his tunic over his shoulders, and Gladio let out a long, pent-up breath. 

“Your badge,” Gladio said to the soldier. The soldier blanched and reached for his pocket. 

“Um.”

“Fucking astrals,” Gladio said. “You lost your goddamn badge?”

The soldier quailed under his glare, fumbling in his clothes. “I thought I--maybe I left it in the duty office. I’m sorry, I...”

“Fuck.” Gladio took out his phone. “I’m waking Cor for this.”

He might as well have woken the entire base. The cells were crawling with people soon enough, and by the time it was decided that Noct would be moved back to Gladio’s suite--in his spare room, this time, with two patrols outside the door--dawn was breaking over the horizon, bleeding a grey light into the sky.

“Don’t know what the deal is,” Noct said, collapsing on the couch in what had become his new cell. “If I were someone else, this would literally be my job. It _should_ be my job. Unless you want to turn me on Niflheim?”

Gladio gave him a weary look, and Noct rolled his eyes and waggled his fingers. “No. No magic. Listen. This isn’t Lucis. We don’t kill whole armies for an edge. We don’t worship rocks to take their magic. We don’t sell our sons to the enemy.”

“You ask for sons, though,” Noct said, and Gladio pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just saying.” He stretched out on the couch, folding his arms behind his head. 

"Do you know _why_ I asked for you?" Gladio asked.

"Power,” Noct said. “Revenge. Maybe both.”

"No." Noctis looked truly surprised at that, and Gladio’s smile was brittle as glass. "No, I chose you because you were willing to sacrifice your own _people._ You'd never be a king. Just someone to overthrow."

Noctis closed his eyes slowly, and took a long, even breath.

“Oh,” he said. “I _see._ ” His mouth went hard at the edges. His voice trailed off, and he spoke so softly that Gladio couldn’t quite catch it. 

“Say that again?”

"You aren’t a king, either," Noctis said, looking up. "I’m a monster? Fine. But I know what to do with the power I have. Gods. None of this fucking mattered.” He swung his legs over the edge of the couch and lurched off, hands in his hair.

“What do you mean?” Gladio asked. “What’s _this?_ ”

Noct shrugged helplessly. “Everything. Look at you. You’re just… you’re just a kid in a crown, aren’t you? Here I am.” He spun, dropping to a knee before Gladio, and dragged Gladio’s hands to the stasis collar. “I can win the war. _You_ can win the war. You can turn me on Niflheim, or kill me so they never get to me, or set the fucking Citadel on fire, but you can’t. You wouldn’t.” His nails dug into the back of Gladio’s hands, and so close, Gladio could see the desperation in his eyes, feral and bright as a cornered daemon. 

“You have a gift,” Noct said. “And you’re not even king enough to know what to do with it.”

The stasis collar hummed under Gladio’s fingers, pale blue light flickering by his thumb. He thought of Cor standing by the wall, brows furrowed, of Noctis kicking lumps of ash on the battlefield, of him charging through the ranks of Gladio’s army, wreathed in light. 

“The hell are you _waiting_ for?” Noctis snapped.

Gladio wrenched his hands out from under Noct’s grip. He pushed him aside, and Noct fell on his heels. Even now, stripped of his power, his title, his pride, there was something dangerous twisting behind his eyes. Something wild. Gladio stepped around him.

“I’m just sorry we didn’t take you out sooner,” Gladio said. “Maybe we could’ve prevented this.”

Noctis raised a hand to his face and let out a hoarse bark of laughter. “Right,” he said. “Go to hell.”

Gladio stepped into his bedroom and closed the door. There was a moment of silence, then a thump of a chair turning over, the patter of books tumbling off their shelves. Then nothing, just the wheeze of breath as the former prince of Lucis was left alone in the heart of the Duscaen camp, with no one to tell him what to do, no one to manipulate, no one to use him, no one to fight. No one but himself.


	4. Chapter 4

Gladio woke to the rumble of thunder rolling through the base, and squinted out his window to find the first proper storm in years building on the horizon, dark and heavy with rain. He stared at it for a minute, swimming in a half-aware fog, and lurched for the rations he kept hidden in his bedside table. He ate slowly, blinking at himself in the bedroom mirror, and was about to head back to bed when he remembered that he was, in fact, supposed to be the king of an entire goddamned country.

"No," he said, scrolling through his messages. Five alerts from Cor. Wonderful. He shuffled into the bathroom, made himself halfway presentable, and unlocked the small side door into the hall, where he glowered two poor, unsuspecting aides into startled silence.

"Not now," he said, as thunder crashed. 

His first meeting was with Cor and Monica, so Gladio didn't take too much care in keeping up appearances as he ducked into the room. His shoulders were rounded, his eyes glazed with sleep, and he raised his hand in a listless wave for all of half a second before the man sitting at the table with Cor stopped him in his tracks.

"The hell is he doing here?" he asked.

"Morning," Noct said, folding his hands on the table. "Sleep well?"

"I wanted his opinion on something," Monica said. She was unflappable as always, even in the presence of the wild mage, her uniform in perfect order despite the fact that as far as Gladio knew, she'd only just come back from assignment. She had a stack of folders with her, laid out neatly on the table, and three empty cups of coffee suggested that they'd been at it for some time.

"Please. You can go on without me if you want," Gladio said, and Cor rolled his eyes. "Don't let me interrupt."

"And I thought I wasn't a morning person," Noct muttered.

"We need to address the question of succession," Monica said, glancing at both of them in turn. "King Regis agreed to abdicate the crown, but in order to maintain the Wall around Insomnia, he'll need someone to wear the ring that links their crystal to the Wall. Is this correct?"

"Sure," Noct said. 

Monica opened a folder, spreading out the profiles collected there. "We have a list of candidates drawn up by King Regis and our advisors in the city. The ring comes with a great deal of power--Whoever is chosen will need to be amenable to Duscaean rule."

"You can kick Tredd right out, then," Noct said, leaning over the table. "Crowe can do it, she was my favorite out of the list they were making before..."

"They already made a list?" Gladio asked. Had they anticipated losing the war? If they had a man as powerful as Noct in the camp, close to Gladio, he could take out the military force of Duscae from within. And if he failed, they already had an heir in reserve... 

"Always gotta have a backup," Noct said. 

Monica was watching Noct, her lips pinched tight. "When did they make this list?" she asked.

Noct shrugged.

Monica's voice was low. "Was it before or after the fire?"

In the breathless silence that followed, Noct picked up one of the papers and ran his thumb over the glossy photo at the corner. Gladio looked over his shoulder, and found the captain of the Kingsglaive looking up from the page, grim and imposing, his jacket covered in medals. Noct folded the paper in half and dropped it on the table.

"After," he said. He leaned back in his chair, tilting it up on two legs. He craned his neck to look up at Gladio. "You think they wanted a _monster_ on the throne?" His smile was mirthless and cold, all teeth. "I told you, none of this mattered. I was never gonna be king."

"Who would they have chosen?" Monica asked. 

"Who knows? The ring responds to the bloodline first, magic second."

"Says Drautos in the top spot here," Cor said, examining a list. "Captain of the Glaive? I don't think so."

"Too close to the king," Monica said. "But he's made comments in the past about making peace with Duscae."

Noct closed his eyes, hands clasped on his middle. "We done?" he asked.

"One question," Monica said. "Why Crowe?"

"She has the power for it," Noct said. He righted his chair and stood, shoulders hunched. "And, I dunno, she's nice. Used to." He scratched his neck. "We used to talk sometimes. The ring cares about that kind of thing."

"Really." Gladio exchanged a dubious look with Cor.

"It'll kill her, though," Noct said. "It kills everyone, eventually. So yeah, maybe not. Give it to Drautos."

"Thanks for the advice," Gladio said, in the driest tone he could manage. Noct didn't even respond. He just stood at the door, watching the guards, until Cor made a gesture and they stood to escort him out, a hand on each arm.

"Doubt we'll give the ring to Crowe when she's gone AWOL," Cor said, just as the door clicked shut. Monica gave him a searching look, and he sat in Noct's old chair, arranging the papers before him. "Received the report this morning. Someone fitting Crowe's description was seen leaving the Lucian camp on a bike late last night. No word of her direction."

"I can take a guess," Gladio said. "Double the patrols. If she's as good with magic as Noct says, this could be trouble."

"She could be running from the ring," Monica said. "And that's not entirely why we had Prince Noctis in the office, Gladio. Take a look at this." She pushed a paper his way, and Gladio picked it up, trying to force his exhausted brain to make sense of the narrow, cursive script.

_  
To the Shield of the King, His Highness Prince Gladiolus of Duscae._

"Ouch," Gladio said. "Someone knows how to flatter me."

_The Oracle of Tenebrae seeks an audience in the neutral city of Lestallum, on the day before the surrender signing. She requests that the king of stone be in attendance, as he was her close personal friend and confidant in her youth. Tenebrae's history as a bridge between nations--_

"Wait," Gladio said. "She's asking to mediate? Who's the king of stone?"

"King Regis, we assume," Monica said. "Prince Noctis said the royal family visited Tenebrae when he was a child, so that could be the connection."

"Tenebrae could've tried to step in _before_ this point, you know," Gladio said, and threw the paper on the table. "Send her a polite rejection."

Cor coughed. "She _is_ the Oracle," he said.

"And I'm pretty sure she insulted me twice in this already," Gladio said. "The fuck is a Shield of the King?"

"It's a title in Lucis," Cor said. He pinched his brow. "Like a... protector. A bodyguard. Which we are, in a way, now that we've taken on Lucis' mess."

Gladio sighed and pushed away from the table. "Fine. Arrange it. Shit, this is more Iris' thing than mine; She'd be thrilled."

"We could always have her come in from the capitol..."

"No. We need her there." _Gladio_ needed her there. Iris had a head for politics; In many ways, she was more like Clarus than Gladio could ever hope to be. She'd been navigating the court at home for years, and the people depended on her. If something went awry at the surrender signing, Iris was one person they couldn't afford to lose.

There was a crack of lightning outside, and the alarm on the wall started to flash. Cor stood, and his chair toppled to the floor.

"A breach," he said, and lunged for Gladio, but he was too late--Gladio was already slamming open the door, just missing the lockdown protocols that would have trapped them in the office until the threat was neutralized. Gunfire stuttered in the distance, and Gladio grabbed a sword off a guard, who went reeling into the wall, cursing darkly. When he raced into the open air, a soft rain was already falling, spotting the concrete.

Gladio pushed through a line of soldiers just in time to see Noctis Lucis Caelum, a gun under his arm, slam his hand against the key to the garrison gates.

The badge. Gods damn him, Noct was the one who took that guard's _fucking badge._ Gladio charged ahead, heedless of Cor's shouts behind him, as Noct slid under the slowly rising gate and into the desert.

"Don't shoot to kill!" Gladio's voice boomed over the thunder that shook the air. "Just fucking stop him!"

He crawled under the gate, and ducked behind a barrel of distilled water as a gunshot sent dust billowing at his feet. Noct fired twice more, once at a guard on the wall, who screamed on impact, and once more towards Gladio, shooting a hole in the barrel. Water pooled in the dust, caking the earth with thin slats of mud, as Noct grabbed one of the armored chocobos and steered it out of the stables.

"Oh, hell no," Gladio said, and made a run for it around the barrel.  
Noct had already kicked his bird into a gallop, but Gladio had been raised on the saddle, and he swung onto a chocobo with no tack or armor to speak of, nudged it out of the stable with his knees, and gave the command to run.

Then the skies opened up over the desert for the first time in nearly a year, and Noct's stolen chocobo became a shadow against sheets of blinding rain. Gladio swore and urged his bird on, trying to pace them in the mud that cracked and slid like the scales of a massive dragon over the parched sand, and soon, even the shouts of the garrison behind him grew muffled and faint, lost in the storm. He kept the smudge that was Noctis in sight, pushing through the rain for what felt like an age, and when he finally came within arm's reach, he hooked his sword in the stirrups and _pulled._

The saddle slipped free, empty and drenched with rain, and the chocobo raced back into the gloom, squawking indignantly.

"Oh, _fuck_ you," Gladio shouted. How long had he been chasing a riderless chocobo? He turned his own bird around, scanning the mud for its rapidly disappearing tracks, and found a patch of disturbed earth a few meters in, and a narrow dip in the mud, tracks leading into the distance.

Gladio clucked to his bird and followed the tracks at a trot, silently thanking the gods that he'd picked a chocobo without the clank and clatter of armor. The tracks led in a half circle, turning round to face the way Noct had initially run, and Gladio slid to the ground just as he came across a silhouette in the rain, hunched over their knees.

Gladio always prided himself on his solid right hook. Noct went down with a curse, slamming into the mud with his legs scrambling under him. He tried to rise, but Gladio turned him on his back with a boot and pressed lightly on his windpipe, just under the line of the stasis collar. 

Noct raised the gun to Gladio's chest and fired.

The empty chamber clicked, and Gladio let just a little more weight rest on his boot. Noct dropped the gun, panting tightly against the pressure on his throat, and lay his hands in the mud.

Lightning struck nearby, illuminating the two of them against the grey of the rain, and Noct closed his eyes.

"Stay down," Gladio said. He lifted his boot, and Noct let out a desperate gasp of air. Gladio straddled him, boxing him in with his thighs, and started ripping open Noct's shirt.

"Wait," Noct said. His voice shook, weak and thin against the crash of thunder. "What are you--You can't just--"

"Didn't have time to get cuffs," Gladio said, and flipped Noct face-down in the dirt. Noct coughed and sputtered, and Gladio shredded the rest of his shirt into strips, tying them in knots around Noct's wrists. When he was done, Noct was choking on mud, and he had to wrench him up by the hair just to breathe.

"You piece of shit," Gladio said, his voice lost in the storm. "The fuck were you planning to do?"

Lines ran down the mud on Noct's cheeks, but Gladio wasn't fooled. Noctis was a liar--A manipulator, trying to twist every misfortune into his own advantage. He dragged Noct to his feet, and ignored the hitch of his breath and the shaking of his shoulders.

Gladio held onto Noct with one hand, and checked his phone with the other. Nothing. Of course they had no signal out there, and the rain was too heavy by then, washing away both Gladio and Noct's tracks. Even the chocobo, which could have guided them home by instinct, had long since fled.

"Great," Gladio said, and took a sobbing, shuddering Noctis by the arms, steering him into the storm. "Looks like it's just the two of us."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up! There's a description of some heavy gaslighting in this chapter, including talk of violence and branding.

The fifth time Noct stumbled, slipping in his borrowed boots, Gladio stood back and let him fall. He hit the ground like a sack of grain, and lay motionless, rain battering the mud that ran red like rust down his skin.

"Get up," Gladio said. He nudged Noct in the side with his boot. "Get up or drown."

Noctis didn't move.

"I ain't carryin' you," Gladio said. They'd been walking for what felt like hours, and his own limbs were heavy enough as it was. The last time he'd spotted a shape in the storm, it turned out to be a line of rocks he'd never seen before, and his well of patience had dried up the moment Noct pulled the trigger of his stolen gun. He half considered leaving Noct to it, but he didn't want to come back empty handed, a king who couldn't even bring his father's killer to justice.

"Fuck me," he said, and dragged Noct to his feet again. Noct slumped, legs buckling, and Gladio forced him to stand. "No. I'm walking, so you're waking. You're the one who tried to make a run for it in the first place."

He pushed Noct ahead of him, marching them towards one more indistinct smudge just out of view. He cursed when he saw it--Just a shack, the windows blown out, gaps in the walls, warding lights that still miraculously flickered in the gloom. Still, it was better than nothing, so Gladio held Noct up against him as he pushed the door open with his foot.

Rain spilled onto the warped wood floor, which smelled faintly of mildew, and trickled down from gaps in the roof. There was a bed in the corner, just a thin pallet over a metal frame, and a crude fireplace by the near wall still held some half burned logs. Gladio shoved Noct inside and came in after him, tracking mud on the floor.

Noct dropped to his knees. Fine. He could sulk all he wanted. Gladio dug through the mess of clutter by the stove, disturbing a few bugs that skittered into holes in the wall, and unearthed a ripped garbage bag. He jammed it over the window, which didn't do much to keep out the rain, but felt better than leaving it open. Then he bundled up some paper and shoved it under the remains of the kindling. 

"Gotta have some matches around here," he said.

Noct's breath stuttered, ragged and harsh. Gladio glanced his way, but Noct was just leaning against the wall. The rain had washed off the worst of the mud, but he was still stained with clay and sand, and his face was filthy. The mark of Ifrit was almost obscured by a streak of clay, and the scars on his back stood out in the darkness.

There was a lighter under the bed, which Gladio used to stoke the fireplace into life. While smoke curled in the air, flames licking at the paper, Gladio reached for Noct. Noct flinched, ducking his head.

"Just bringing you closer to the fire," Gladio said. "Unless you want to get pneumonia?"

Noct didn't reply, but he did shuffle closer, hands flexing against his bonds. Gladio stripped off his own jacket, which was soaked through, and hung it and his shirt on a beam over the fireplace. Noct stared openly, his gaze tracing the lines of Gladio's eagle tattoo. 

"Never saw that before," he said, in a dull voice.

"Got it when Dad died," Gladio said.

"Huh." Noct carefully rearranged his legs. "Me too."

Gladio glanced at the mark on Noct's chest, but Noct twisted his chin to the side, gesturing to his back. "Your scars? You did that to _yourself?_ "

"Wasn't my idea, but..." Noct leaned over, letting his hair drip into the fire, and Gladio reached out to hold him back. Noct's heartbeat was racing under his fingers, and his breath was fast, uneven. "Someone had to pay for the fire. It was gonna be one stripe for every squad we lost, but that would've killed me. Captain Drautos intervened. Made it less."

It took a minute for what Noct said to register. "Your father wouldn't..."

"You don't know what he wouldn't do," Noct said, but there was no heat in his voice. "Neither did I. I didn't question it. I'd been losing control of my magic for years."

Gladio pushed Noct away from the fire. There was something strange about the way Noct spoke. There was no hint of the taunting drawl, the sarcasm, the tight, perverse cheeriness that took him, sometimes. He just sounded tired, worn, the way Gladio felt after he had to spend all day speaking to the public.

"I was running to Luna," Noct said. "The Oracle. That message this morning--She used to call me the king of stone when we were kids. King of stone. And she's got a direct line to the gods, so... Maybe she can figure it out. Maybe I'm not crazy."

Gladio bit down an acerbic remark, and Noct gave him a small, sideways smile. "Yeah. I know. Why not go to her in the first place? But this was the only chance I was gonna get. I could've sworn you were the one who did it."

"Did what?" Gladio asked.

Noct threw his head back, flipping hair out of his eyes. "Set the fire."

 

\---

 

Noctis Lucis Caelum had always been meant to do great things.

In a war where a good mage could tip the balance of a battle, a boy like Noct, who wielded magic with the finesse of an artist and the strength of no Caelum who'd come before, was a cherished asset. He started training in battle magic at fourteen, working directly under Captain Titus Drautos, and soon, he mastered every tactic the mages of Lucis had invented, every shield and lightning strike and spike of ice, and he counted down the days to his eighteenth birthday, racing after his father on King Regis' rare visits to show off his progress.

"Be careful around fire," Drautos had warned him once, in a camp tent placed well out of range of the battlefield. "Fire belongs to Ifrit, and your bloodline calls to the gods. Too much of one element, and you'll draw their eye."

But Noctis, who spent his afternoons making roses and swan boats out of fire for his best friend to see, didn't put much stock in superstition.

Then the episodes started. 

The first struck when he was sixteen. Noct woke up alone in the royal gallery of Lucis, staring in horror as fire licked up the wallpaper, dangerously close to a priceless painting from the third century. Noct smothered the fire in time, but when he ran to the barracks to tell Drautos, the captain only dragged him back to the gallery, where Noct had to stand in silence while his mentor poked at the ruined wall.

"Did you do this?" Drautos asked, pointing to a mark in the wall, where a strange symbol had been scorched in as though pressed by a brand. 

"No," Noct whispered. "No, I swear. It wasn't there before."

"Hell," Drautos said, muttering under his breath, and to Noct's alarm, ripped a hole in the wall where the brand had been. "Tell no one what happened here," Drautos said. "No one."

Noct stepped back, staring at the dark hole in the wall, and nodded.

Three weeks later, a Glaive, Tredd, found Noct sleepwalking at the forward camp.

"He could've burned down half the fucking army," Tredd shouted, while Noct sat in sullen silence in the corner of the tent. Drautos looked at him, then back at Tredd, brows knit tight.

"Keep your voice down, soldier," Drautos said.

"And that fucking symbol in the ground," Tredd said, making no attempt to lower his voice. "What is he, a daemon-worshipper?"

"There wasn't a symbol!" Noct said, sitting up. "He's bullshitting you!"

"Noctis. Language."

"It's true!"

But when Noct followed Tredd and Drautos out of the boundaries of the camp, there in the smoldering, ruined sagebrush was the mark of Ifrit, ashen in the sand of Leide.

"You need to keep this under control, Noctis," Drautos hissed, as he scuffed out the symbol with his foot. "We'll have to start meditation lessons again. You're losing control."

"I can't just control it in my sleep," Noct said.

"Then you'll move into my tent until we can send you back to the Citadel," Drautos said. He took Noct's face in his hands, tenderly, the way Noct's father used to before the war took him to the front. "I'll look after you, Noct, but you need to trust me. Do you trust me?"

"Of course," Noct said.

"Good."

Every morning, before the Glaives would leave Noct to go to the front lines where reckless sleepwalkers couldn't follow, Drautos read Noct a list of what he'd heard him mumble in the night. Dark things, disturbing things, promises and pleas and whispers to a master whose name Noct refused to say, no matter how many times Drautos tried to wheedle it out of him. Noct would read over the notes when Drautos was gone, and took to wandering the lines of tents, hoping he'd find his father there for an inspection, for a check-in, for anything.

Then Noct woke in the middle of the desert, the dead trees around him wreathed in flame, and a figure pressing a brand bearing the mark of Ifrit, red-hot and heavy as the Titan, to the untouched skin of his chest.

"There was no one there," Drautos assured him, when Noct was lying in the infirmary, dazed and wracked with pain. "Noctis, there was _no one._ The security cameras on the border showed only you leaving the tent."

"Then it was someone from outside," Noct said. "It had to be."

"Noct..." 

Noct fumbled for Drautos' hand. "Please," he said. 

Drautos' face shifted, then, his expression twisting into something mournful, something lost. "I want to believe you," he said. "I'll try."

Regis left the front at the word that Noct had been injured in what Drautos claimed was a training incident, but rumors were already spreading among the Glaive. Crowe, who had partially trained Noct in the art of fire in the first place, and Noct's friend Ignis refused to believe it, but Crowe was sent off to the Duscaen border, and Ignis was safe in Insomnia, too far to call.

Regis held Noct's hands in the infirmary and told him of his own mishaps as a boy, but despite his father's warm touch and sympathetic smile, doubt was building in Noct's mind, and Regis left troubled, speaking quietly to Drautos of Noct's unusual reticence.

No one seemed to want to speak to Noct after that. Ignis stuck by his side, stubborn as a burr, but maids and servants refused to clean his rooms for more than a few days at most, and the rumors only spread when one of the Glaives spotted the mark of Ifrit on Noct's chest in the shower, still raw and dark. Noct learned to brush the rumors aside, dismissing them as Drautos did, and when he was eighteen, Regis allowed him a place of honor on the front lines, facing down the men of King Clarus himself.

"Here's your chance to prove what you can do," Drautos said, and winked. "No pressure."

"Right," Noct said, and slipped on his official battle robes. No pressure. 

They had a plan, him and Drautos and the Glaives. Noct would cover the only source of water in the region, just him alone against the might of Duscae, and when he spotted King Clarus in the forward squad, he'd take him out with a single burst of flame. Just one death, and the entire battle would turn in their favor. One death, and Noct would prove he had what it took to be king.

Standing on the crest of the hill, his robes billowing in the warm breeze, Noctis raised his hands to call down a pillar of fire.

 

\---

 

Gladio stared at the logs in the fireplace, slowly breaking apart into chunks of ash, and ran a hand through his hair.

"I know," Noct said. "It doesn't make it any better. I was always gonna kill your dad. And I'm sorry. But it was supposed to stop there."

"How?" Gladio asked. "How'd it go from him to..."

"Oil," Noct said. "I didn't believe it, at first. I thought I'd lost control again. I thought I'd..." He held his breath. "I went down to check. Maybe just to torture myself, I don't know. But there was pottery in the... mess. Oil marks. They were hard to see under everything, but they were there. I couldn't cool any of them off without breaking them, but when I came back the next morning, they were gone. And it was too late, then. Even Dad believed the rumors. _I_ believed them. Enough people said they saw Ifrit in the flames, and I didn't have any proof, just... Just a bad memory, so... So a few months later, Dad took me out of the line of succession. Said it was for the best. Said he didn't want the ring to hurt me."

"And you were whipped for it," Gladio said.

"Yeah." Noct was shivering, even so close to the fire. "Not my shining moment. Broke free of the post twice."

Gladio sucked in a breath through his teeth. "And Drautos... He was the one who held the whip?"

"So?" Noct twisted to face him, brows lowered. "Were you listening to me just now? Drautos covered for me. He _protected_ me. He, he loved me, even after it happened, even when Dad wouldn't look at me. I saw the letters people sent to the Citadel, afterwards. I heard what the soldiers were saying. If it was anyone else, I'd be dead."

"Alright," Gladio said. "Calm down." 

"Don't _humor_ me. Anyways, I got this idea in my head that you planned the fire. You became king, didn't you? So when you asked for me, I thought, okay, here it is, he's the guy who set the fire, maybe even, maybe even the burn--"

"We've been over this," Gladio said.

"I know! Which is why I was going to Luna." Noct leaned forward, almost tipping over his knees. "She still believes in me. She called me king of stone, king of the _crystal._ Maybe she has proof that it was Niflheim, or we can _find_ proof--"

"You could've told me this from the beginning," Gladio said.

"And you could've been the one who did it! I had to get it out of you. But then you weren't, so I had to find a way out. It's so fucking frustrating." He looked over at Gladio, who was still staring at him, and rolled his eyes. "And you already think I'm insane, so it's not like any of this matters."

Gladio ran a hand over his face. "I need a minute," he said. 

"Yeah, well, I'm at your disposal," Noct said.

"Will you be willing to tell this to Monica?" Gladio asked. "Everything. Every detail you have, every witness?"

"You can't believe me," Noct said, narrowing his eyes slightly.

"You _did_ steal a guard's badge, shoot one of my soldiers, and try to shoot me," Gladio said. Noct winced.

"Yeah. Uh. I was kind of... I panicked. Sorry."

Gladio prodded the fire, sending sparks flying. "I almost believe that. So how about this. You stay with us and tell us what you know, and we'll help you. You won't have to run to Tenebrae or Niflheim for answers, and we'll keep you safe while we investigate."

"And if it turns out I'm lying?" Noct asked.

"You'll go to prison. We don't kill criminals in Duscae."

"Well, with choices like that, who can say no?" Noct said, with just a hint of his familiar drawl. "Think you can untie me first?"

"We're not there yet," Gladio said, and Noct snorted, flopping onto his back. 

"Yeah," he said. "I thought so."


End file.
